Although humans have a large range of different hair types: density, length, coarseness, sheen, moisture content, follicle thickness, curliness, and others, hair dryers are traditionally “one-size fits all” and treat all hair the same. Hair can be damaged from overheating created by powerful dryers. While many companies already produce hundreds of different types of hair dryers, none provide a comprehensive and intelligent feedback mechanism and interactive experience to optimize the drying and styling of hair. Nowhere in the prior art is an enhanced hair dryer taught with the ability to profile a human scalp and then later “call up” such a profile to optimize subsequent hair drying/styling experiences. In particular, relatively few advances exist whereby scalp or hair profiling is combined with, either intelligent adjustments, alerts, wind speed and temperature adjustments, or other hair drying/styling modification experiences.
The primary aspects involved in the majority of hair drying/styling devices involve a heating coil and a rotating fan housed within a protective outer shell. When power is supplied to the device, the heating coil responds by heating the air within the apparatus. The heated air is then forcefully expelled out of the device through a rotating fan. When used as a hair styling tool, this results in accelerating the process of removing moisture absorbed within the hair follicle by rapidly heating the temperature of the hair. Consequently, microprocessor control of air thermodynamic properties is not taught whereby hair profiles may be stored and later retrieved. Furthermore, said stored profiles being developed through the use of hair sensing mechanisms such as infrared detectors or cameras is not taught. These profiles may contain the “V-Number”: The V-Number is calculated as a weighted, normalized average of the aforementioned components, including but not limited to density, length, coarseness, sheen, moisture content, follicle thickness, and curliness. A version of this formula is described below:Hair_density×HD_Normalization_Factor×HD_Weighting+Length×L_Normalization_Factor×L_Weighting+Coarseness×C_Normalization×C_Weighting+Sheen×S_Normalization_Factor×S_Weighting_Factor+Moisture×M_Normalization_Factor×M_Weighting+Follicle_thickness×FT_Normalization_Factor×FT_Weighting_Factor+Curliness×Curliness_Normalization_Factor×Curliness_Weighting_Factor+OtherN×OtherN_Normalization_Factor×OtherN_Weighting_Factor
Due to a multitude of variabilities, the structure of hair follicles varies per person, with each individual requiring a customized setting for the level of heat generated by the heating coil and the speed of which the hot air is expelled from the hair drying/styling device. Offering a standard amount of different control settings for heat and speed allows for greater device control, however still fails to address the complexity of variables of an individual's hair follicle structure. No prior art teaches sensing the actual hair on a human subject, and then analyzing/storing those parameters for later usage.
The artificial hair coloring process is complex and steps are taken to preserve the color for as long as possible, including refraining from washing hair and preventing hair from receiving excess heat. Our technology may have a dedicated setting for situations in which the user has completed a hair coloring process, and a proprietary algorithm will compensation for the treatment to increase the longevity of the color process.
To access the level of moisture contained within the hair follicle, it is beneficial for the hair drying/styling device to contain a temperature sensing tool, such as an infrared thermometer or thermal camera. The device may also implement a circuit board and display monitor that allows for the camera to send the information to the display so that the user is able to view the sensing data, or the display could be a proximal device such as a smartphone or tablet. The circuit board may be configured in such a way as to interpret the data from the thermometer camera to establish the optimal temperature needed to dry the hair follicle while minimizing damage that results from excessive heat. Consequently, most if not all prior art dryers tend to over dry hair and can even damage it. The prior art fails to teach or suggest deriving optimal temperature data which may be used to develop a personalized profile for the user of the hair drying/styling device, and can be stored within the device or transmitted to a local or cloud-based server through a wireless local area network capability, such as a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection, to be accessed each time the device is used by that specific user.
Traditional hair dryers use open coil heating elements, which is a resistive wire that dissipates heat when electric current is passed through it. Such heating elements are relatively inexpensive and heat up quickly so they have been popular in hair dryers. However, the heat outputted by open coil heating elements cannot be channeled in a particular direction very easily—the heat radiates from all directions from the wire. For this and various other reasons, some hair dryer manufacturers have been including quartz infrared bulbs as heating elements in addition to nichrome wire. These bulbs tend to have tungsten filaments and are essentially light bulbs that are tuned to emit heat in the form of infrared light.
The benefits of infrared light are well-documented in the beauty domain, and the bulb has various other properties that are applicable for use in a drying device. For example, typical infrared bulbs have a rated life of at least 5,000 hours. Assuming each hair drying session lasts 15 minutes, this covers 20,000 hair drying sessions. Since the unit is a light bulb, techniques for focusing and controlling lighting components can be used to control the heat output of the device, such as reflective coatings on the bulb that can direct the heat out the end of the unit, providing a finer grain of control than traditional nichrome heating elements. The infrared bulb has a fair amount of inertia—it takes up to 20 seconds to heat up to its peak temperature and also exhibits similar behavior when cooling down, and can be mitigated and taken advantage of for cooling.
Traditional hair dryers do not have an urgent design objective to minimize power consumption or waste heat. Waste heat is defined to be heat that warms the chassis of the unit without materially adding to the output of the device.
This invention relates to the systems and methods for interpreting the condition of a head of hair and optimizing the blow drying/styling experience and outcome. This including methods, devices, systems, and computer programs for understanding, optimizing, and interpreting multiple characteristics of human hair in order to provide information, interactive collaboration, and benefit to a plurality of users.